Gowan frowned. “There is no one who plays the cello in all Scotland, I should think.”

“Hmmm.” Edie didn’t care. She enjoyed playing with her father, but she also loved playing solo, and happily did so for hours at a time. “How on earth did you reach my balcony?”

“I climbed. I thought to play Romeo to your Juliet and call you outside, but when I heard you playing I was drawn up, as if by music from a fairy mound.”

“A fairy mound? What is that?”

“In Scotland music leaks on occasion from the land of the fairies, which is located under a grassy hillock.” He came a few steps closer.

Edie smiled at him. She did not move. “So I lured you, as if ’twas magic from my strings?”

“Yes.”

“We were playing a Vivaldi concerto.”

He was silent a moment. “There is a great deal I do not know of music, my lady.”

“So I gather, if you had never heard of a cello.”

“In truth, I have never heard of a woman musician. Singers, yes. And certainly ladies play the pianoforte.”

Edie nodded, at peace with that. Public performance had never been a dream of hers. “I do not wish to play for an audience. Though I rather liked having one this night.”

“Will you play for me again?”

“Of course.”

He came closer still, close enough that his breath stirred the tiny curls on her forehead. “I arrived before your father entered the room.”

That look in his eyes . . . Hot color flooded Edie’s cheeks.

“You, playing a cello, is the most erotic thing I ever saw in my life,” he whispered. Then his mouth closed over hers.

Her first kiss.

His lips were sweet on hers, tender somehow, even though they hardly knew each other. Yet it was possible he knew her better than anyone else.

His first kiss.

Her lips were like the sweetness at the heart of a honeysuckle blossom. For a second Gowan couldn’t believe that he was actually kissing her. Their lips brushed together once, twice . . . his tongue dipped inside her mouth.

She opened her lips to his with a surprised little sound. He leaned closer, bracing his forearms on the door. Their tongues tangled for a moment, then Gowan kissed her eyes and her cheeks and then, powerless to resist, returned to her mouth. They kissed until Gowan’s head was filled with images of Edie’s pale legs twisted with his, her body arched on the bed, a cry bursting from her throat . . .

No.

He would not dishonor his bride-to-be, no matter the fact that she had her arms wound around his neck and was kissing him feverishly, her tongue as bold and sensual as his.

No matter the fact that her slender fingers were playing in his hair, leaving little tingling reminders of her touch.

No matter that his heart was pounding as hard as hers. He could feel it through the insubstantial fabric of her nightdress, just as he could feel her breasts, soft and tremulous against his chest.

He turned his head away, hearing his own breath coming harsh from his chest. She murmured something and her lips skated across his jaw. He felt her lips touch his ear; a groan escaped his mouth.

“We cannot do this,” he whispered, putting his forehead against the cool wood of the door. “We must not.”

“Gowan,” she breathed, and Lord help him, her hands slid from his neck and down his chest.

“Edie. I will not dishonor you. My bride. My duchess.”

Her eyes were slightly glazed, her mouth pouty with his kisses. But she cocked her head, that formidable intelligence of hers snapping into place almost audibly. “How honorable of you.”

They stared at each other. She was a sonnet sprung to full life, but none of that mattered.

The little lopsided smile she had, with the kiss that she had never given to anyone, that was what caught his heart and put the groan in his throat.

“I must go back down the ladder,” he said hoarsely.

Her smile strengthened. “I find myself very glad to be marrying you, Duke.”

“I’m very happy to hear it, lass. In the circumstances.” He couldn’t help touching her, curving his hand around her neck and bringing her mouth to his again.

“I don’t believe that this is customary among—among the nobility,” she said with a little gasp, a while later.

Gowan shook his head. He couldn’t bring to mind a pairing that had erupted like theirs, in a burst of flame. He cupped her face in his hands. “We must be certain,” he said, the words growling out like a vow, “that we are not quick bright things that come to naught.”

Edie’s hands came over his. “I feel as if I should engage a governess and bring her along with me to Scotland. Was that Shakespeare again?”

He nodded.

“I never did like poetry all that much,” she said, turning her face so that she kissed his palm. “Although you might be able to change my mind.”

“I am fond of verse.”

“Any woman could tell that you’re fairly swelling with your seductive prowess.”

He fell back a step and broke into a crack of laughter at that. “Swelling? Swelling?”

Edie’s already flushed cheeks turned rosier still. “You know what I mean!” she said. “You’re—you know everything and I don’t.”

Should he be honest?

She put her hands on her hips—and she had luscious hips, perfect hips. The action pulled her nightdress taut across her equally perfect breasts. Her gaze was so sincere and direct that he confessed the truth. “I don’t know about it, either, Edie.”

“I’m not talking about marriage,” she said instantly, her cheeks turning even brighter red.

“What, then?” he asked. He was really enjoying himself.

“The bedding part!” she cried. “That part. You know it, and I don’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “Though if you laugh at me again, perhaps I’ll see if I can gain a bit of experience in the next few months before we marry.”

He backed her against the door in a flash, caught her hands over her head in one of his, felt her body hot against his. “Absolutely not.”

Laughter shone in her eyes and she batted her eyelashes at him deliberately. “I’m sure you’d be grateful to find that you didn’t have an ignorant chit like myself in your bed on your wedding night.”

“No.” He bent his head and drank her in, deep and fierce.

When he drew his lips away from her again, she said in a ragged voice, “You have all those love poems and lines of Shakespeare and the rest. I have none of that, Gowan. I can’t read a play to save my life. I tried, and I couldn’t make head or tail of it.”

“I don’t care. Let me teach you to love poetry.” He traced the curve of her bottom lip with his finger. “You’re mine, Edie.”

“That is hardly the point,” she said, her voice darkening. “I’m . . . And you’re . . .”

“As untouched as you are,” he said, fascinated by the way thick lashes framed her eyes.

Her brow furrowed.

“A virgin,” he said, growling it because, after all, a man isn’t supposed to be a virgin. Ever.

He released her hands and swung her into his arms. She was a snug weight, a soft female weight that sent a flame right down his limbs. But he made himself walk to a chair rather than topple her onto the bed.